For those of us outside the US, the Trump entry into the US Presidential race so many months out from the actual election has been entertainment heaven. Sure, he is destroying the fabric of a great nation by bring horrific stereotypes and misinformation to the fore, but sometimes that is the price to pay for depravity.

But there is a strong sense that this will come to an end. There [...]

The deal yesterday morning between the Greek PM and the Eurozone Finance ministers is an agreement to reform before talks. By tomorrow evening, the Greek parliament has to accept 4 pieces of legislation on a large range of issues (pensions, labour markets, taxation), after which the other 19 Eurozone countries will start negotiations on another bailout. The European Central Bank has refused any loosening of the conditions [...]

The Greek referendum and the hype leading up to it have gone exactly according to my script of 8 days ago, where I predicted a resounding ‘no’ vote and a Grexit to stop the bank-run, with the other European politicians too offended and belittled by Tsipras and Varoufakis to organise another bailout.

The Grexit is now very likely, so likely in fact that Varoufakis’ friend Jaques Delors is writing open letters to European newspapers [...]

Greece owes the IMF 1.6 billion euro that it doesn’t have but is supposed to pay tomorrow. Unless the ECB lends it to the Greeks, effectively converting the IMF debt into an ECB debt, Greece is bankrupt tomorrow. In months to come, much bigger debt repayments are scheduled to the ECB-IMF in tranches of 4 billion, and Greece won’t have that money either as its economy is still contracting.

The traditional textbook model of competition in an oligopoly goes likes this. Firms choose prices and other variables (like product quality, advertising and R&D) to maximise their own profits and disregard the impact of their actions on (a) competing firms and (b) consumers; although with the latter since they want them to buy products they aren’t completely immune to their welfare. This model is essentially unquestioned but, in reality, it relies on [...]

I have previously written about the sorry state of the experimental (social) sciences (see here and here). Recent news about publishers having to withdraw (again) scores of papers in the wake of a rigged peer-review process (see here and here) and a flurry of retractions in psytown (e.g., Stapel, Sanna, Continue Reading

Over the last 15-20 years academic school meetings have gone from rambling and unstructured brawls to dull “executive infomercials”. The former led to marathon meetings. The current model has led to a middle-management culture that often does not take advantage of the very valuable specialists skills of talented, highly trained (and experienced) scholars in the department. Nor does it allow for reasonable checks and balances on the powers of the executive–something that is vital for [...]

Education Minister Christopher Pyne is concerned that some universities are educating students who do not repay their HECS debt:

Universities churning out graduates who do not repay their student debts would face financial penalties under a proposal by Education Minister Christopher Pyne aimed at securing Senate support for fee deregulation.

This kind of punishment mechanism for universities taking advantage of the HECS scheme through under educating students [...]